A Review of Facebook v1.7 for BlackBerry Smartphones

When you're sitting in front of your laptop or desktop, do you find that sometimes (and I mean most of the time) your attention migrates from your work to Facebook? If so, you're not alone, it happens to many of us. We all share one thing in common- we are addicted to Facebook. Don't worry though RIM has you covered; you can stay connected to Facebook wherever you go by using the Facebook v1.7.0.22 Application for Blackberry.

Facebook v1.7 for Blackberry is great way to stay connected to Facebook without navigating to the mobile site. This application adds many more features that cannot be found on the mobile site, and it gives you almost all the things that Facebook.com does, but nicely packed into an application. With that being said however, sometimes easier, isn't always better.

About Facebook

Sized at 1.0 MB, Facebook for Blackberry was developed by Research in Motion (RIM). It is free to download, and you can sign up for a Facebook account through your Blackberry if you do not already have one. To download you need to be running a 4.2 OS or higher. I have it installed on my Bold 9650 running the 5.0 OS, and have not had any hardcore technical problems.

Facebook for Blackberry was developed as an easy/convenient way to stay connected to Facebook without actually having to get on a computer or go to the mobile site. It offers a wide variety of features that are very useful, and that can be integrated into your Blackberry.

Once you're logged onto the application you are directed to the main screen. Here you have access to your newsfeed. At the top of the screen is the main menu bar that you will use to navigate through the 7 main pages of the application.

Page shortcuts:

Newsfeed- (S)

Notifications- (N)

Camera- (U)

Friends- (F)

Add a Friend- (J)

Write on a Wall- (W)

Send a Message- (M)

The first page of the application is similar to the main page on Facebook. It contains the newsfeed and a place to share your statuses. You also have the opportunity to comment, like, or see wall-to-wall posts. As you can see from the screenshot above, you can also filter your newsfeed, by selecting one of the options from the ‘News Feed' drop down box.

The next page is your notification center. All your notifications are found here, and it is set up similar to an inbox. If you have your various notifications set to ‘on', they will appear in your messages inbox by default as well. I have mine set to off, which can be done only through turning off the email notifications through the actual Facebook website. Sometimes the notifications become annoying, especially when you are having a conversation via walls or comments.

You can upload pictures from your Blackberry directly to Facebook using the camera icon. Once you click the icon, you will be asked to choose a picture. The next feature is really neat in my opinion. You have the opportunity to tag yourself and friends using the red square and cross in the screenshot above. I used this feature right before writing this and was blown away by how easy it was. Facebook definitely brought their a-game with this.

The next page is your friend list. This page is relatively simple, and it is similar to a friend directory. Here you can do a variety of things, write on a wall, request a phone number, send a message, and poke a friend. This is where easier is not always better, I usually never use this page, however when I sometimes click the icon, I have to wait for my entire friend list to update. This can take a large amount of time depending on how many friends you have (hopefully you aren't too popular). I find this page annoying.

Adding friends via this application is easy; all you need is their email address. Not much to this feature, however you can't search using their name like on the main website.

I combined the breakdown of the wall posts and messages. They are almost exact carbon copies of one another, and are easy to use. I've used both of these features many times, and they work very well.

Clicking the Blackberry button will bring up a set of options, varying from the application options to launching the mobile site. There isn't really anything special in that list to feature.

A really cool feature that I enjoy the most is connecting Facebook friends to contacts in your address book. This gives you a variety of shortcuts and provides a Facebook avatar for the contact. The screenshot above shows the shortcuts, and also you can see the little picture with the ‘f' in the corner. To connect a friend with an address book contact, simply go to their profile on the application, click the Blackberry button, select "Connect to Blackberry Contact", and select the contact. This feature will also ask to request their phone number(s) if you don't already have it.

The last feature I am going to go over is the calendar integration. This is another feature that I like a lot. Facebook will automatically sync your Blackberry calendar to your event invitations on Facebook (includes events that you are just invited to, even if you haven't checked attending). It also includes birthdays, which makes remembering them a lot easier. I use this feature a lot, especially since I'm not that interested in having a paper calendar.

Conclusion

My conclusion of this application is that it offers a lot of features that the mobile website cannot, such as a complex newsfeed, a soft and friendly user interface, and contacts and calendar syncing. I use this application multiple times a day and usually have zero problems. I do however stay clear of certain parts of it, such as the friend list and messages because of the slowness because of updating. For the most part this application works perfectly for me, and if I can't do something on it I can just go to the mobile site. For the Facebook addict, it is worth the download because of the simple and neat features, but for the Facebook novice who might get annoyed with the sometimes-large updates of the friend list and newsfeed, and also the lack of friend ‘info', it may be best to just browse the mobile site. If anything, give it a test and if you don't like it just uninstall it.

Reader comments

Facebook for BlackBerry Review

Kevin (aka Ryan Seacrest): Sweet up David. I was hoping we'd see a little sketch of some sort tied to a review... infotainment as I like to think of it. Now let's see what the judges thought!

Dieter: Clever intro, dawg, pretty awesome. But both the review and the video after that intro were a little ho-hum. I like a 'just the facts' attitude as much as the next guy, but your own opinion (which looks accurate to me) gets a little lost in the dryness and a little repetition.

Georgia: Liked the small skit at the beginning of the video, great way to get our attention right from the get go. Your voice did get a bit monotonous through the latter part of the video, try to change your tone and pace to keep us engaged. In the written review, you did a great job going over each of the features of the application, Bravo! The review gave me a nice grasp of what I could do with this application and how it differs from using Facebook on the web. I did find your sentence structure could have used a bit of work. Discussing how the application is more suited for the Facebook addict than the novice was a nice addition. That kind of information is why people read individual reviews instead of just reading the iTunes application information. Nice job.

Craig: The video review started off interesting with a clever-ish sketch, but then went downhill quickly. You sounded bored (or tired) and seemed to stumble through the features. I had to force myself to pay attention. Your written review was much better. It covered the apps features. I would have liked to have seen a little bit on what RIM added in this new version. Lastly, BlackBerry has 2 capital B's :-)

Nice skit at the beginning. That was probably fun to write, shoot, and edit ... ... ... aaaaaaand then you lost me. While I think your video review was thorough enough, it was too long and rather boring. In fact, I stopped watching 2 minutes in.

I do agree with the conclusions you wrote. This app is slow and lame except for the calendar/contact sync.

Nice job on the review sir. I liked it. The video could have used a few improvements, but I can't speak on that because it's probably 100 times better than anything I would have done. For real. Good info though. I actually learned a few things too.

One addition to the "cons" section that I would add would be the issue I have been battling with ever since I downloaded it back in the day... is the Mobile Uploads (pictures). I can only get about 1 in 20 images to actually load to Facebook without giving me some kind or retarded error. I really don't even try anymore. I just email them to myself and do it from the PC. Only been able to add a caption on my BB... once. That never works. If that worked the way it was supposed to, I'd be 100% stoked about FB for BB. I notice that a lot of people rip it, but I also never used another phone's app to see how they compared either, so as they say; ignorance is bliss I guess. Anbody have any suggestions about the picture problem I have, I'd love to hear them.

I'm running OS 4.5.0.186 on a Sprint 8330m (which may be the problem).

I found the easiest way to upload a photo from my Berry is to email to the unique FaceBook email address, that links directly to your Mobile Photos.Profile>Photos>Create A Photo Album>Mobile Photos Tab, the weird email address there links directly to your acct. I put it in the phone book, so when ever I want to put a picture on Facebook, email to that address. Works better than that app ever has. But still not as good on my Android powered HTC device.

The skit at the beginning was the only thing really good about the video. It went downhill quickly from there.

Newsfeeds was good information. You didn't show what does show for a person's profile when you click on someone. You didn't show image galleries, which is another nice feature of the FB app. You barely touched on the application itself other than scrolling over the icons. That is barely a walk-through.

The other thing that bothered me was the "Um's". You said "Um" 35 times throughout the video. That's an "Um" every 11 seconds. Anytime I hear a reviewer saying a lot of
"Um's", it makes me think they don't know what they are talking about and are just trying to fill space. Partner that with only a half-walk-through and it really makes me think you won't make the cut for round 2.

Here's a tip for people. Go over the app ahead of time. Take notes. Know what you want to present before you hit record! If you're going to demo something with a photo (like tagging photos), know where the image is on your BB ahead of time. I little bit of preparation could have made this review so much better.

The one bad thing about the application is that the notifications aren't synced with the facebook web site. On the iPhone application, if you check a notification, it isn't new on the website or the other way around. If you check a notification on your computer, it's still unread on the phone. Besides that the application is great.

For some reason the notifications on the app are dead on my 9700; for example - says someone has sent a message, when I select it it says too big to display... Happens with pretty much all notifications. Also, only being able to add people via email address is poor.

I have it installed just so I remember to check things and to upload photos, however I then have a shortcut to the Notifications screen in m.facebook.com

The best shortcut that I've found to use in the Facebook app is......(wait for it).... The Delete From Blackberry Option!! This app screwed up my calendar and contacts. I've had to repeatedly add addresses and phone numbers back into my contacts. I thought it was the google sync causing problems, but it turned out to be the contact and calendar sync in facebook. It is nice to see their facebook pic, but it's even better to have info in my phone still (just in case I ever have to use the Blackberry as a phone).

I've found that the Facebook app hi-jacks your email and doesn't display emails from FB in your inbox but rather in the FB app itself.

If you have another FB account and also get those emails on your BB then they get mixed up inside the FB app.

Here's my situation:
I have a FB account and get emails sent to a gmail account I have on my BB. If I log into gmail on my pc I see the FB emails. If I open the gmail icon on my BB the FB emails are not there. Fine. But they are in the FB app.

I get a copy of every email my daughter gets inside another gmail account. So with FB send her an email the FB app does the same thing and injects her messages into the FB app I'm logged into.

Not sure how to fix this but it seems that any email from FB sent to any email account on my BB get's hi-jacked by the FB app regardless of the logged in FB user.

I thought the review was pretty good. Lets focus on how much facebook for blackberry sucks.

You can't tag people in status updates like you can on a computer.

The friends list updating is slow? If you have hundreds of friends, it takes an eternity!

No chat feature, I'm not downloading another app to do that.

If someone has tagged someone in a status update, it says "In this photo" instead of correctly having the person tagged.

If someone shares a link on your wall, oh yes, you get a notificaiton of it, but it only displays the persons last post to your wall.

Overall, I feel like facebook for blackberry is like a vintage pager, ok maybe a two way pager, SOME days. Most of the time it will alert your phone some kind of activity is going on with your facebook, but don't get your hopes up that you're going to be able to really know what the notification was for!

The only thing I thought was remotely cool was when the application scans your address book contacts. When logged on to facebook on a computer, if someone has their phone number publicly listed on their profile, and you haven't added them to facebook yet, sometimes you might get a match and can send them a friend request. That part though is still dysfunctional because 75 percent of the results come up as people in foreign countries with phone numbers not even remotely similar to whats saved on your phone!

I'm not going to lie, being able to update my status or send messages from an application is much easier than sending text messages from a dumbphone, but still...things could be drastically improved.

hi i have a blackberry bold 9000 and a 500mb data plan.
i want to know if i keep my facebook open but im not using it, would it cost me a lot of data? send me an info or answer in my email HDKahel@yahoo.com thank you

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